Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 441
She interrupted him sharply. “How long do you propose to keep that light shining straight in my eyes?”
“Stella, I propose to find out how this story got started.”
With her eyes tightly closed, Stella began to hum loudly the air of “Auld Lang Syne”; and, when he repeated, with increasing sternness, that he was determined to discover the origin of the misinformation that had stimulated Mrs. Gliesinger to offer him advice, his recumbent wife made her humming more coherent; she began to sing the words of the song.
This overcame William; she was too much for him, and he sat down upon the foot of the bed, taking his baffled head in his hands. “You talk about dragging around to parties and trying to look happy. I guess I’ve had to be doing my share of that! How do you think I felt to-night when Mrs. Gliesinger let it out to me what must be going all around the N.K.U.? Once a story like that gets started there’s no telling what twists they won’t put on it or where it’ll end. Lord knows when it’ll reach the Big Boss, himself! Pretty nearly everything does get to him, in one shape or another, before it stops. For all I know, it may have got to him already, and I certainly don’t feel like going up there to-morrow night. It makes me feel just sick, as if I couldn’t face anybody for fear of what they’re thinking about me.”
Stella had continued to sing “Auld Lang Syne”; but a part of what he was saying caught her attention sharply. She opened her eyes. “Going up where to-morrow night?”
“To the Big Boss’s to dinner.”
“Who is?”
“We are.”
“What?” she almost shouted, and abruptly sat up straight in bed. “What are you talking about?”
“We’ve got to go,” William said dismally. “I didn’t feel much like it when he asked me, and I certainly feel a whole lot less like it, now. He said he wanted us to come up to his house for Sunday evening dinner, because he thought on account of our new relation it’d be pleasant to establish a little more personal intimacy between us. That was the way he — —”
“When did he ask you?”
“This morning.”
“He told you this morning!” Stella cried angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t you telephone me instantly?”
“What? I didn’t think of it. But anyhow, Stella, you’ve got me so that I hardly dare to say anything to you about anything. We’d been almost not speaking at all, and, when you’re hardly speaking to a person, it’s not very liable to occur to you to be calling him up on the telephone.”
“I think that’s the flimsiest excuse I ever heard any man mean enough to make in my life!” She was furious. “You’ve known it all day and you wait until after midnight to tell me, and to-morrow’s Sunday! And then you come ranting around to me, wondering how the story’s got around that you’re jealous. If you haven’t given the trickiest, most treacherous exhibition of it — —”
“Of what?” William asked aghast. “Of jealousy? In the name of heaven, what am I jealous of?”
“Of your wife’s success!” she shouted, fairly in his face. “You didn’t tell me until now because you want to make me look cheap, and in your mean little heart, Bill Greeley, you know it!”
“I want to make you look cheap?”
“Yes, you do! If you’d called me up even this morning I could have got Aurelia and hurried down town and found something that would have been at least half decent to wear!” She jumped out of bed, ran to the closet where she kept her clothes and began to rummage through her dresses, continuing meanwhile to upbraid him fiercely. “It never occurred to you to call me up; no, I guess it didn’t! You wanted me to go up there to meet the best dressed people in this town and have them all thinking that I look like Bennettsville, didn’t you? Well, I guess you’ve got your way; that’s what I’ll look like! I haven’t got a single evening dress fit to wear to anything better than sloppy, third-class parties like the one your friends gave us to-night.”
“You haven’t? Why, what’s the matter with that blue one you wore at my inauguration banquet?”
“Your inauguration banquet! Oh, my!” She hooted at him. “Talk some more about that; I like to hear you!”
“Well, what’s the matter with that dress?”
“I wore it!” she shouted. “I wore it at the banquet! I’d rather go to that dinner to-morrow night in a wrapper, and I expect that’d prob’ly suit you perfectly. You’ve done your best to get me up there looking like a scarecrow, and I don’t want to hear any more from you. Get off the bed.” She began to bring dresses from the closet and to dispose them upon the bed for inspection. “Get off that bed and go sit somewheres else. Not on the sofa!” She cried at him shrilly, as he moved in that direction. “And not at my dressing table, either. Good heavens! When you’ve done a thing like this to me can’t you even keep out of my way?”
It was William who finally, with the tables reversed, begged for the chance to slumber that night. Stella, accompanying her researches with reiterated murmurs of reproach and allowing him small opportunities for either plaintive explanation or dismal repartee, busily continued to flurry among all the items of her wardrobe, until at last he drowsed in a stiff chair with his head against the wall. Not until after three o’clock did she let him get to bed; and, when he woke in the morning she was already up and had gone to Aurelia with her problem.
XI
THE QUESTION OF selection from their joint wardrobes occupied the two ladies most of the day; William was turned out of his apartment; and all afternoon he and Mr. Hedge drove apathetically through the city’s parks and about the suburbs, while their wives, at home, remained in diligent conference. Aurelia and Stella scissored and sewed, mumbled to each other feverishly with pins in their mouths, and, in their tensest moments, examined the result of their work as Stella anxiously posed before the mirror, trying on one transformed vesture after another. It was not until after sunset that the decision was made in favor of an afternoon dress of Stella’s from which the sleeves, the shoulders, a generous section of material in front between the shoulders and, at the back, a triangular piece extending down to the waist, had been removed. This lively garment of figured pale green silk came just to Stella’s knees, and Aurelia devised for it a vivid ornamentation. She had a rhinestone girdle, which she cheerfully dismembered and used to make an edging at the neck and down the back and two little glittering straps over the shoulders. Stella owned a sunburst of false diamonds, and with this they caught the dress up a little at her hip. They chose silver-colored stockings and the silvered shoes with rhinestone buckles that Stella had worn at the banquet — she might risk this much repetition without fear of detection, they felt.
Finally then, Stella stood silently before the mirror with this extemporized costume completed upon her; but Aurelia went into raptures. “You’re it! Stella, you’re absolutely it! You can walk into that house absolutely self-confident because he’s going to fall flat at your feet the minute he sees you!” She laughed joyously. “Don’t you have one second’s worry or fear; you’re the whole N.K.U. works to-night! You’ll see! It’s going to be a bigger night for you than even the banquet was; you’re going to just walk right over everything!”
Stella, fascinated, had not taken her eyes from the mirror during the last half hour. “What about just a touch more color?”
“For your face? Just a shade more; but not on your lips. Your lips are exactly right.” Aurelia applied the rouge herself. “There, and don’t you touch it again.”
“No,” Stella said in a hushed voice. “It certainly does look right.”
“Right? I’ll tell the world! You know, yourself, you never saw such a picture as you make right now in all your life!”
“I guess I never did,” Stella said almost in a whisper, and her entranced eyes grew dreamy. “I guess I have to admit it, Aurelia; I guess, after all, it even beats the cornflower chiffon. I thought I’d wear my crystal earrings, but I don’t believe I need one more touch.”
“Yes, you do but not any earrings. I’ve just had one last big idea. When those two men come back again I guess we’ll have to let ’em in, because Bill made such a fuss about getting a chance to do his own dressing the last time he came hammering on the door that we can’t keep him out much longer. Well, we’ll let him get started — he can take his clothes in the bathroom, and Henry can run an errand for us. The Boulevard Flower Shop is open on Sunday, and we’ll send Henry to get a bunch of orchids for you as exactly like the one Mr. Cooper sent you for the banquet as they can make up into a corsage. That ought to let him know you aren’t so hard-hearted that you haven’t been doing a little thinking about him, Stell’!”
“Who?” Stella asked. “Henry?” And, upon this sally, the two joined in a short burst of laughter; they calmed themselves quickly. “I never felt so excited in all my life!” Stella said.
“Who wouldn’t be? Think what’s happening!”
“Aurelia, after I get there, what do you think I better talk about?”
“I guess you won’t have any trouble about that,” Aurelia returned archly. “You’ll be sitting next to him, of course, so just go on with what you were talking about with him at the banquet.”
“Yes, but that’s the trouble. You see, we didn’t talk much about any one special thing that night. He paid me all those compliments I told you about; but the whole world was staring at us, and the Mayor kept breaking in and talking to him and — —”
“I guess he said enough!”
“Yes, but I do wonder how I’d better begin to-night, after we get at the table. For instance — —”
“For instance,” Aurelia interrupted, with burlesque gravity, “you might ask him how much of an invalid the flu has made Mrs. Cooper, and whether she really is going to get well or not.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t — —”
“No, I certainly wouldn’t,” Aurelia returned, greatly amused. Then she became more serious. “If I were in your place, I wouldn’t bother much talking about the weather just to get going; I’d start right in. Just about the first thing I’d say, I’d say it was just perfectly wonderful how he didn’t have any gray in his hair. I’d say that of course I didn’t mean on account of his age; but, with all his cares and worries over being the president of such an enormous business, anybody would have expected that he’d be kind of more worn-out looking, so to speak. Then I’d just sort of laugh, as if I didn’t mean it too much in earnest and was only half-joking, as it were, and put in something a little more serious about how I always did like distinguished looking men.”
Stella was impressed. “That’s just about what I thought I would do. I think that’s just about the way I’ll start things off, Aurelia. I’m all right, once I get going; I know that.”
“Oh, you’re certain to get going; and when you get going really good, Stella, you’re absolutely great. When you get that way there isn’t anything on earth you can’t get away with; and, for heaven’s sake, don’t forget about the raise for Henry! The sooner we put that over, the better.”
“You needn’t be afraid about that,” Stella said lightly. “It’s almost the first thing I intend to put over to-night. I’m going to have you in a house just as near ours as we can get it. Do you think I ought to hint anything definite about what salary’ll be needed for — —”
“No,” Aurelia returned thoughtfully, “not exactly in so many words. Just something about how he might feel about doing the right thing in kind of a big way, and how terribly it would please you to see your friends fixed up near you and everything. Just feel it out a little as you go along, and then shoot for it, you know, Stella.”
“Oh, I’ll shoot for it!” Stella, looking at the mirror, laughed exultantly and missed nothing of the lovely imaged laughter she saw there. “And I’ll bring it down, too!” she cried, not to Aurelia but to the reproduced beauty before her.
Time was, and not long ago at that, when Aurelia knew spiteful moments for the joy Stella had of her mirror; but now the little confidante had no jealousy left within her; she was vehement in purest admiration. “You just make me gasp, Stella Greeley!” she burst forth. “You ought to’ve been born a queen! You are one; yes you are, and you’re going to be queen of the N.K.U.! That’s certain! There isn’t anything on earth you can’t do.”
They believed it; Stella’s radiance enveloped them both and they seemed to share it; — intoxicated, they saw in it the bright necromancy that was to bring them each her heart’s desire, and it was upon this mood of exaltation that the hammering of William’s knuckles upon the door, and his insistent demand for entrance, came as a warning that the great hour was near at hand. They let him come in and turned him into the bathroom with his arms full of clothes while Aurelia spoke hurriedly with her husband who had lingered in the corridor, and bade him make haste to be gone for the orchids; but he hesitated.
“I was just thinking,” he said slowly, “there was something I wanted to tell you, Aurelia. At any rate, I was going to tell Bill about it this afternoon, but then I thought I’d wait till we got home where all four of us could sort of sit down and talk it over, you and Stella and Bill and I. I thought it’d be a good time to do it now, so if Stella’s got her clothes on I’ll just come in and — —”
“Come in? What for?”
“Why, to talk this thing over that I was going to tell you and Stella and Bill about. If we could all four just sit down — —”
“My heavens!” Aurelia uttered a cry of impatience and pushed him toward the door of the elevator shaft. “Go on. You’ve got just about twenty-five minutes to get back here from The Boulevard Flower Shop with those orchids for Stella. Go on.”
“But — —”
“Go on! I never knew such a man!”
“All right,” he said wanly, “I guess I might as well.” And, as he departed down the corridor, Aurelia ran back to the brilliant figure still standing entranced before the mirror.
“Stella, did you ever in your life! You heard what the poor old bonehead said, didn’t you? Wanting to come in here now and ‘sit down and talk things over’! Isn’t that like a man?”
“And isn’t that?” Stella cried merrily, with a gesture of her golden head toward the bathroom door which imperfectly muffled explosive words; William had evidently lost something beneath the bathtub.
The two young wives made the room ring with their happy and excited laughter; and Aurelia began to circle in a merry little dance about her friend. “Bow to the Queen!” she sang. “Kiss the King’s hand and bow to the Queen! Bow to the fairest you’ve ever seen! Bow to the Queen! Bow to the Queen!”
XII
THE GRAY STONE terrace, where the Greeleys stood in the dark twilight waiting for admission outside of a deeply vestibuled oaken door, had an air dimly majestic that was a little daunting to William, but not in the least so to Stella. Aforetime, she had often driven by here and looked in almost tremulously at the long and massive house set far back, among shrubberies and high trees, at the end of a green lawn so broad, so costly, so groomed that even to imagine herself crossing it, or guiding her rattling little car up the driveway that bordered it, made her gasp. That time seemed now to her a long, long while ago. Fresh from her mirror and Aurelia, she was full-panoplied in a dauntless self-confidence that laughed pityingly at all such former absurd timidities; she could almost feel herself glittering under her wrap; the dusk seemed warm with gold that shone through the wisp of chiffon she had wound about her head, and, proudly and consciously wearing this glitter and this gold, she found within herself a new and triumphant personality equal to anything and not afraid of lawns or terraces — less still of such pompous and showy ladies as might be revealed by the opening of the oaken door. Only one thing annoyed her.
“You had plenty of time, yesterday, to have done the right thing,” she said to William. “You could just as well have looked up to the minute as not, even if you had to buy a full evening dress suit ready-made. You saw Mr. Cooper at the banquet with a tail coat, pearl studs, white vest, white necktie, and everything.”
“He was the only one,” William protested nervously.
“He won’t be the only one here. You’ll be the only one — the only one in a tuck!”
“I can’t help it now,” he said desperately. “Oh, golly! I wish these next three hours were over and we were — —”
“Be quiet!” she whispered imperiously.
She had expected the door to be opened by a liveried figure defined in her mind as an “English butler”; instead, the office was performed by a colored man of affable appearance.
“Uh — Howdy-do! Is Mr. Cooper at home this evening?” William inquired, and coughed. “Anyhow, he invited us to — —” But Stella swept by him and into the broad hall. “Mr. and Mrs. William Greeley,” she announced haughtily.
“Yes, sir.” The colored man smiled hospitably. “He home. Come right in, sir; come right in.” William obeyed, and, entering, found Stella already delivering her wrap and chiffon scarf to a negro maid. “Thank you,” he said to the man, as the latter took his overcoat and soft hat. “Much obliged! Much obliged!”
Stella, who said nothing to the maid, sent him a quick, scornful glance over her shoulder; then the two followed the colored man to a wide, open doorway and passed through it into a large, shadowy room, where, in the illumination of a couple of shaded table lamps and a fire crackling under a carved stone mantel, seven or eight people were talking quietly. In this soft and mellow light and against the altering brown shadows, the marble and rose and green and gold of Stella, gleaming brilliants, were startling; her instant feeling was that of an overwhelming superiority to the other women present. Her first impression of them was not of their faces but of their clothes — silks and silk crêpes of dark blue, brown, gray and black with a little embroidery and dull colored decoration; and all of them with sleeves. Before she had time to take detailed or individual note of these obscurely revealed ladies she sweepingly classified them in a group, and, with exultation and yet with disappointment, too, set them down as unimportant and rather dowdy.
